Comments on: More Anti-Consumer Regulation

By: markm

markm — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:22:14 +0000

<\i>Backwards slash?

By: markm

markm — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:21:22 +0000

Dang, I'm sure there was a closing tag after "motherboards". Did I slant the slash wrong way?

By: markm

markm — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:19:07 +0000

Erik: The slow pace of the courts was only part of the problem, the main thing was the Justice Department missed the point. They ignored that forced bundling of MS operating systems with motherboards, and went haring after the bundling of Internet Explorer - and "won" that without accomplishing anything, because in the several years that were required for a hearing, decision, re-hearings, and appeals about that, (approximately '95-98) MS had re-written Windows so IE was an integral and inseparable part. In W98 and up, it can be turned off but not removed. Not that it matters much at this point, even at a slightly negative cost (that is, it's free and it takes time to disable it), IE is losing to other browsers whenever someone becomes aware that there are other choices.

OTOH, Microsoft never was ordered to stop forcing OEM's to ship Windows with every PC or pay a whole lot more per copy, and AFAIK that practice continues today. Ask for a PC shipped with Linux installed and running, and find out about that... Linux is currently pretty competive on features and ease of installation, and it's free, but computer makers can't take advantage of that unless they become 100% non-MS shops.

Of course, the second thing the "free" software movement really needs at this point is for the software to be sold through a corporate cover - because corporate buyers are uncomfortable with it otherwise. I fail to see why they'd ever tolerate the standard MS licensing agreement (What you bought isn't yours, it's ours but we'll let you use it as long as we feel like it, we are in no way responsible for defects, and we have added "features" to the software such that whenever you upgrade your computer you have to come to us for a new key to keep your, we mean our, software running) but for some strange reason they prefer it to actual ownership of a free copy of a free product.

By: Walter E. Wallis, P.E.

Walter E. Wallis, P.E. — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:04:11 +0000

I have asked my senators to get a law that requires European fines to be paid only from European sales.
The original anti trust action killed the dot.com boom.

By: dearieme

dearieme — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:46:30 +0000

The EU is Vichy France by other means.

By: M. Hodak

M. Hodak — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:03:20 +0000

This isn’t the same court that decided the right to self-incrimination should be forfeited in Europe,

http://www.hodakvalue.com/blog/2007/07/the_right_against_selfincrimin.html

…but it’s clearly a kissing cousin.

While certain antitrust prosecutions may seem reasonable, the remedies in this case strike me as so arbitrary (anti-consumer, even) that you have to ask yourself: If that’s the best they could hang Microsoft on, was this prosecution worth it? And if this is the best that antitrust prosecutors can do, is it worth it for them to have all that power they say they need to bring ‘monopolists’ to account?

By: dave smith

dave smith — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:57:19 +0000

Also, this cannot be consided in anyway an "extreme" case of "anticompetitive" behavior. There are many media players available for free that a user can obtain in minutes.

As a consumer, I don't consider a web brouser and media player as separate from the operating system. I expect my computer to do these things out of the box without any effort on my part.

By: Billy Beck

Billy Beck — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:21:19 +0000

"The second complaint (which bothers me more) is Microsoft's prohibiting vendors from pre-installing competing media players, web browsers, etc."

That was a matter of contract: those vendors made that choice voluntarily. You are couching it ("prohibition") as a matter of unilateral force and it simply isn't true.

By: Chris Fritz

Chris Fritz — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:43:50 +0000

Ah, if only I were European and had a voice in the EU. Maybe I could get Microsoft to cough up another bajillion for illegally tying in the desktop and filesystem. After all, how can anyone complete in these fields? What if I want to use another desktop and a different filesystem on top of the fairly stable Windows XP kernel?

By: ErikTheRed

ErikTheRed — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:04:15 +0000

@WhatAboutSteve – You’re missing the point. Apple makes the computer and the operating system and sells them as a complete unit. There are no third parties being pressured here. The PC manufacturers build the computer, and then purchase and bundle a license for MS Windows with the product. So far so good. There are two complaints against Microsoft’s behavior here. The first (which I’m not too worked up about) is that Media Player (and Internet Explorer before it) are separate product and the PC manufacturers should have the option to bundle them or not. IMHO, whatever – let them compete here. The second complaint (which bothers me more) is Microsoft’s prohibiting vendors from pre-installing competing media players, web browsers, etc. That’s anti-competitive and bad for consumers and the economy in general.

Yes, the balance of power has shifted – it started right after Microsoft settled with the US DOJ and was prohibited from using these tactics and not a minute before. I know there are some absolute puritans in here that believe all government intervention in the market is bad, but I personally think that there are a few extreme cases where it makes sense to intervene – and this was one of them.